The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-12-15

Max Dwight was ready for his carly
tramp to the upland lake where, as he
knew, there was a certain out cropping
of roots suited to the manufacture of
some rustic benches he had been prom
ising to make for his wife.
Mistress Janet accompanied him to
the porch of their cottage, carrying
Tottie, who in her pink and white prct-
tiness of babyhood, was as like the
young mother as the wild roses bud is
like the wild rose.
"Thc rain must have been heavy above
here" remarked Mistress Dwight, not
ing the aspect of tho creek in the Di-
vide.
The stream, ordinarily tangled like a
silver wire among the powders and
bosky hollows at the base of the ridge,
was chatting in its bed, the acceleration
of its current betrayed by muffled
roar.
ayes, when the Ottcr's boosting along
like that, the pity is that the mill stands
still, and the hands are idle" COM
planned Dwight,
"Don't fret, Max. I'd not get my
benches but for the mill machinery being
out of gear"
He laughed, kissed her and Tottie,
and moment later was striding down
the path to the bridge, whose arches
connected the jutting ridge on which he
lived with the, further side of the Otter.
This stream, lower down, did the work
of an army of giants, turning the wheels
of the mills and factories, in which hun
dreds of bread winners daily toiled.
Alluvial bottoms, cultivated farms, vii
lage homes of peace and plenty, and
countless other evidences of prosperity
ay behind Dwight when he had crossed
the bridge and turned into the path
leading upward to the lake plateau
Always observant, he noticed that tho
creek was steadily rising.
"The rain must have flushed the lake
consld erably," he thought, stopping
once to inspect a tangled mat of drift
whirling past 'Bless me if that isn't
a lily-pad from the lakes bed. How
ever anything but hurricane" HI
stopped short.
A horrifying fear had throttled hin
in the rugged path. The morning was
instinct with joyousness. To the ear came
the matin symphonies of nature; to thu
eye her harmonies of light, color, move
ment. Overhead were fockings o
swelling cumuli white as fresh washci
sheep browsing in spacious pasturagt
of the myosotis bloom.
Whence was the menace of evil?
Wrestling with the Shape in the way
as Christian wrestled with Apollyon
Dwight saw, drifting by, another cluml
of lily pads, tangled with vine full o
foliage and budding fruit.
"Its branch of the wild-gr tina
climbs the sycamore next the lakes
rim," came to him with the force of as
surance, and casting aside his axe, h
sped up the ascent he had been lcisurcl,
climbing.
Reaching the plateau, in the midst o
whose picturesqueness was embowcret
the lake, overhanging the dcfile like
Babylonish garden, ho saw, almost t
his chagrin, its hundreds of millions o
cubic feet Of water placidly smiling ant
dimpling in the sunshine. The rain ha'
not flushed it. Fushed2 The lake wa
lower than its lowest water-mark
The fear he had shaken off leape,
upon him and tore at his vitals again
As his gaze darted along the embank
ment to the cleft through which tho
creek flowed, he saw that the stream
was not only momentarily eating its wa,
deeper into the rim, but that, here ane
there, the embankmcnt showed assures
indicating an extended dislodgmcnt o
the natural supports of the lake Easir
A practical engineer himself, Dwigh
had always entertained doubt of tn
stability OF that freak of nature-th
disproportionate fountain head of Otte
Creek. Some day, he had thought, th
cray fish, the ottcrs, the thawing an
the freezing would do their work an
then would come tho drainage of th
: great basin.
But not in his day! Oh, no! NJ
when he had just builded a homo ft
: Janet and the black-eycd Tottie rigf
in the shadow of the superintendent
, ruin; not while the valley below WI
. astir with the whirr of mills, the stel
| ping of busy feet along its ways of plca'
. antness and peace.
But it had coma in his dayl As h
!: stood staring, fissHrc widened and
bold stream shot forth. At the sight !
turned and fed down the path. Ma
urally, his first impulse was to fly wit
|. the warning to bis wife aud child ;sure